Beautifully Blind
by butterflygirl
Summary: Sometimes blind eyes see the most beauty... Quatre returns to school on L3, to find a blind girl with the only remaining desk. His pity isn't wanted, though...
1. Default Chapter

Firstly, I'd like to thank my friend Susan for editing this for me. She edits all my fics, and I'm really grateful!  
I'd just like to say that I don't think that disabled people are portrayed often enough in fics. Though I'm not disabled myself, I think they make as good characters as other people.  
Thanks for reading my blurb- please review the fic, even if you hated it. I love reviews! ^-^   
Oh yeah, I don't own GW. I wrote to them asking if they'd sell it to me, but all I have is a button, fluff and a few cents. They refused.   
  
  
The only empty desk in the classroom was in the corner by the window. A girl he hadn't met before sat at the next desk over wearing dark glasses, even in the dim light of November. Quatre moved uncomfortably over to the free desk, all too aware of the curious eyes following him from the rest of the interrupted class. He'd been away for a couple of years, during the wars and sorting out his family's business. He had expected to be met uncertainly, but it made him uncomfortable all the same. The only person not staring at him was her, head on one hand looking idly out through the chilled windowpane, seemingly ignoring everything else. The snow outside may have been manufactured, but it still cast a pleasant wintry look over the landscape, almost as good as the real thing; though since he'd seen snow on Earth, anything else seemed a poor copy by comparison.  
"Hello," Quatre said as he sat in the desk. She didn't bother to turn around, but replied anyway.  
"Hi. I'm Adia."  
"I'm Quatre. I don't know how you can see in here with those sunglasses on."  
She laughed, a bitter sound that rolled around the corner they sat in. This was the worst part for her, always. With a swift movement of her arm, she tucked her russet locks behind her ear.  
"I guess you wouldn't, being new. With or without them, it's all the same to me." She turned, and pulled them off in one movement. Quatre swallowed, staring at the pearly orbs in her lightly tanned face. Then he looked away, ashamed. It wasn't right to stare at her when she couldn't know and react.   
"Stare all you like," Adia told him. Calmly, as though she had read his mind. "I can't see to notice." She put her sunglasses back on to hide the misted spheres that transformed her face.   
She was blind, and he'd commented on her vision. Great. Quatre felt awful; a terrible sympathy was settling in his mind. He breathed out deeply, and fumbled for an apology.  
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"  
"Don't. You wouldn't know, and I don't want you digging yourself into a deeper hole than you can get out of," she cut in, smiling grimly. "Call me Dee, if you like. Most people do, though I have to say I hate that name. You new?"  
"Yes," he replied thankfully, trying to forget the discomfort of the last few minutes. "I came here before until a couple of years ago, then I had to leave."  
"Well, don't look to me for help with your work, I'm afraid," she said cheerily. "I can't see to help you anyway."  
"How can you joke about it?" he asked before he could stop himself, then sat in silence as she considered his question. He should have thought about it before he had spoken. It had somehow offended him to see her talk so lightly about what had caused him so much embarrassment.   
"Because I'm used to it. I'm 17 years old now, and it happened when I was nine. I got ill and it blinded me, so here I am. I have a Braille keyboard on my laptop, so I get along alright." She pulled the computer from a drawer beneath the desk, then reached over and pulled out his. "Mine's special- you'll have a normal one."  
"Oh, alright." Flipping open the lid, he sat down ready to type as the teacher picked up the lesson plan.  
Adia grinned, then moved her fingers to her keyboard, fumbling for the 'home keys'. He picked up her hands and put the fingers on the right keys, then turned back to his.  
"I don't need your help or pity," she retorted, trying not to be grateful. Quatre understood. If he felt helpless, he wouldn't want anyone else to know it, either.   



	2. Pain is better let out

When Adia stood to leave for lunch, Quatre felt fur brush against his leg. Looking down, he saw a small friendly dog wearing a harness, with the leash in Adia's hand. The spaniel looked at him lopsidedly, then moved in front of the blind girl and led her to her locker. He smiled and knelt, stroking the obedient dog as she pulled her lunchbox from the top shelf, then stood and walked with her to the lunchroom.  
"That's Sandy," she remarked as they strode down the hallway. "My guide-dog."  
"She's sweet," he told her, turning into the canteen. She followed, but he suspected she'd followed the sound of his footsteps to find the doorway, rather than knowing where it was. He kept silent.  
Adia sniffed at her slightly soggy sandwich, then bit into it. "Oh, great. Tuna. I hate tuna. What do you have?"  
"My sisters packed me salad," he replied, placing it on the table. "But they seem to have forgotten the fork. I suppose I should be grateful to them, making my lunch for me."  
"Why bother with a fork? Use your fingers. You'll only stab yourself." she told him absently, then blushed as she realised that she'd given him advice that applied only to her. "Sorry. Sometimes I forget I'm the only one."  
"It's okay."  
Sandy barked, pawing at Adia's leg, and was rewarded with a piece of meat from her lunchbox, packed for the loyal spaniel. "You know why I called her Sandy?"  
"No," Quatre responded, smiling at the sight of the dog gnawing her jerky. "Why?"  
"I got her just after the war," Adia said in carefully blank tones. "I thought Sandy was appropriate, after Gundam Sandrock." A slight twitch at the corner of her mouth told Quatre she knew exactly what she was talking about. Not that it mattered anymore, but he still didn't like it being spread around.  
"That's…interesting," he remarked, frowning. She couldn't see his face, but his tone told her something had upset him.  
"I'm sorry if I offended you," she stated, resting her head on one hand. "I often say things people don't want to hear. Comes of being blind. Lost all my tact."  
"It's alright, I don't mind," he told her diplomatically, though his mind was skipping around. How had she known, and who would she tell? Why had she told him so lightly?  
"Don't wrap me up in cotton wool, I'm not made of glass," she retorted, scowling. "Just because I've only got four senses doesn't mean I don't know I offended you."   
Suddenly her face became softer, hesitant. "Could I…could I touch your face?" she hurriedly added, correctly guessing his surprise: "So I know what you look like. It's the only way I can get an image of people."  
"Um…sure," he told her, eyes darting around in embarrassment as her fingers touched his skin softly. Some people glanced their way, but no one laughed. Maybe it was ordinary for her to do this with new pupils. Maybe it had happened with all of them.  
"You're tense," she remarked, smoothing his forehead. "Don't worry, I won't dig my fingers through your skull and into your brain." She playfully made burrowing motions with her hands. Quatre grinned, and she smiled as she felt his expression change. "That's better. You know, your face is probably the most symmetrical I've found," she told him, voicing it matter-of-factly, in a perfectly everyday tone. "It's strange." She took her hands back, and grinned sheepishly. "I'm sorry I had to do that, but I hate going around not having faces to match with the voices I hear."  
"I know," he said distractedly, thinking of other things. Sometimes he forgot his spaceheart, and it crept up on him, like now.  
"Uh-huh? Well, I guess that's another thing you won't want to talk about, being psychic and all," she teased, not knowing about his expression of bafflement. "Come on. It's biology next, and I like that."  
^^^  
Adia sat and listened, bored, to the disgusted sounds coming from the other students. They were dissecting rats, another activity she couldn't take a part in. ~ Well, at least I can't be grossed out like they are, ~ she thought, wrinkling her nose at the smell from Quatre's rat. He'd almost refused when the teacher told them what they'd be doing, but when she told him she'd need his results too, he'd consented unhappily. ~ Quatre's too kind, ~ she thought with a smile. ~ He's too gentle. ~  
~ Why was she smiling? ~ Quatre wondered, scalpel neatly cutting away some more flesh from the rat's corpse. ~ She should be bored stupid. ~  
"Why the smile?"  
Adia jumped, then turned to face him, glasses perched back on her nose. It was another barrier between her and the world, but it also avoided undue stares at her mist-covered eyes. "I don't know," she told him, fingers crossing impulsively behind her back, out of sight as she thought, but just visible to Quatre from his seat at the desk. She didn't see the smile on his face as he looked at her.  
^^^  
"It feels big in here," she remarked, stepping into the hallway. Quatre had brought her home with him, to meet his sisters. Twenty of them were currently in residence, and the house was hectic but comfortable, all the same. She was right; it was big, but by no means the biggest room in the house. ~ How did she know that? ~  
Adia cracked a smile, then pointed at her eyes. "Being blind just gives you extra sensitivity to these things." She could often guess what he was thinking.  
He winced as she once again pointed out her deficiency. It didn't matter to him; to Quatre, she was just another person. A good person; his friend. The only one who really give him any sort of welcome at all, even after she found out just who he was.   
The weeks had sped by since he'd returned to school to graduate a year in the future, and it was getting ever closer to Christmas. He'd asked her what she wanted most in the world, and she'd smiled sadly. "What do you think I want?" she'd asked, the melancholy in her voice grabbing him by the heartstrings. "The one thing nobody can give me." She hadn't told him what that was, but let him come to his own conclusions. Sure, she wanted her vision back, but the one thing she wanted most was to see his face, to have a picture of the melodious voice she heard everyday.   
Jamy, the eldest of his sisters, came out of the kitchen, and saw her little brother standing there with a girl in sunglasses. She knew immediately who it was; they'd managed to wheedle enough information from him as possible about school, and had jumped on him when he mentioned her. This had to be Adia- Quat's new friend.   
"Hi! I'm Jamy, Quatre's sister," she announced, touching Adia's arm. The girl jumped and a slight scream escaped her lips; Adia hadn't heard Jamy coming, despite refined hearing, and her sight deficiency meant that the subsequent shock was larger. She coloured brightly when she realised her mistake, and her embarrassment was written on her face.  
"It's alright, Dee," Quatre told her, forgetting how much she hated that nickname and laying his arm around her shoulders. "It's just my sister."  
Adia shrugged it off, rejecting the small comfort. She ignored her slightly quickened breath at his touch and dismissed it as shock. "Don't call me that," she mumbled. "It's just this damn darkness…"  
She shuddered, then stood straight again, a look on her face Quatre remembered all too well. She was going to ignore the whole incident, and pretend it never happened. ~ Just like her to be that stubborn, ~ he thought, rubbing his hand against his trouser leg. ~ She doesn't like people to know how vulnerable she feels. ~  
"Well, come on," he told her, almost reproachfully, and she followed him into the sitting room where Jamy had already managed to get most of his sisters to come eye his new friend. Quatre groaned internally. They were probably seeing if she was 'suitable', he thought, grimacing at them. No matter that she was just his friend; they loved to play matchmaker. ~ No matter that we're just friends right now, ~ he thought, and scowled at himself. His youngest sister jumped, and he smiled carefully, trying to dispel any ideas they had.  
"Um…Hi," Adia mumbled, looking towards the sofa. ~ She can probably hear them chatting, ~ Quatre thought, glancing at his friend. She looked nervous. ~ Probably still ratty over her scare, ~ he considered, then dismissed it as his sisters turned to look at Adia.  
"Hi!" came a chorus of voices, and a lot of introductions she could never possibly hear against one another.   
"Could you please be a bit quieter?" Adia asked loudly. "I have good hearing, and you don't have to shout!" The last part came at a yell, overpowering his sister's voices and turning the room to silence.  
"You'll have to teach me to do that," Quatre whispered, and Adia grinned.   
"Alright, I'm Adia…"  
"We knew that!" the youngest piped up, immediately hushed by her sisters.   
"And it's nice to meet you all…but don't expect me to learn all your names when I can't see you," she finished, blushing with humiliation. "I'm sorry," she whispered morosely, and sat down on a chair behind her, head in her hands. "I'm sorry…" she whispered even quieter, and pulled off her sunglasses, gripping them tightly, her knuckles turning white. Her sightless eyes glistened with unshed tears that she tried not to let go. A solitary drop ran down her cheek, and she wiped away with a swift movement of her sleeve. The embarrassment of meeting twenty people all at once that she couldn't tell apart was painful and it rubbed her face, yet again, in her inability to see the world around her.  
Quatre could see that his sister's hearts go out to this 'poor, crippled girl,' as Jamy put it to another, sitting beside her. Adia's head snapped up, and the glare was vicious. Jamy hadn't been quiet enough.  
"I'm NOT CRIPPLED!" she yelled. "I don't need your pity!" She stormed out, somehow finding the door and walking through, then towards the front entrance.  
"Dee!" he called after her, hurrying into the hall.   
"Don't call me that!" she screamed, fumbling desperately for the door handle - her means of escape from her embarrassment - and, unable to find it, lost control and kicked the white-painted wood violently. It shook under her onslaught. "Damn it! Damn that f***ing illness! Damn my bloody useless eyes!" she screamed in frustration and fell to sit on the floor, weeping into her quivering hands, emotion swelling inside until it couldn't stay in, pouring fluidly over her eyelids, and spilling onto the carpeted floor.  
He sat next to her, awkwardly unable to do anything about it, numbly trying to think of something he could say.   
She wiped her eyes, trying to stop the tears unsuccessfully. "Damn my stupid wistfullness," she said, trying to sound cheerful but failing miserably. "I just can't accept it. I have to accept it!" she retorted to herself. "It's never going to change!"  
Quatre smiled weakly. "You don't know that," he told her. "They're always curing new things, aren't they?"  
"So what?" she told him bitterly, nevertheless grinning lopsidedly. "There's something wrong with the surface of my eye. It's not like they can remove it."  
His sisters were watching the conversation from the doorway. Occasionally one of them would grin at another. Jamy turned to her closest sister.  
"She'll do," she mouthed.  



	3. Sharp Hearing

Quatre was walking along the street with some shopping for his sisters when an arm reached out from an alley and grabbed him, dragging him in He struggled and dropped the bags, but the arms- there was more than one now- were far too strong. The first thing he knew was a hand over his mouth to choke back his yell, which was quickly replaced with a cloth forced down over his mouth and nose, a chemical smell, and then oblivion.  
^^^  
"Adia, is Quatre with you?" Jamy sounded worried; she'd called just before Adia went out for school.   
"No, he's not. Is he missing?"  
"He didn't come home last night, and we wondered if you'd seen him…"  
Adia blushed with a sudden idea of what they might have thought. "He's just my friend, you know, Jamy…"  
"Sorry, I didn't mean that…we're just so worried…this sort of thing has never happened before!"  
"Don't panic, and I'll find him. Don't worry. My father…my father trained me for this kind of thing. Just…leave it to me." Adia hung up. Damn it. She hated to admit it, but her father was right. He'd said she'd need to do this some day, and she had. She ran back to her room to change into more suitable clothes.  
^^^  
All Quatre knew was the darkness of his cell. Those keeping him hadn't spoken, and he hadn't seen their faces. The total of what he knew of them amounted to the sound of their movement and the smell of their unwashed bodies. Now he knew how Adia felt- spending a day in this darkness, surrounded by things he could not visualise would drive him crazy, and she'd lived in it for eight long years. However, she hadn't been tied hand and foot to a chair, and left for God knew how long. For all he knew it could be days since his capture- there was no way to tell in this black hellhole of a prison.  
^^^  
Grimly, she pulled on her second boot and stood up, then grabbed her bag and strapped it on. She had no way of knowing if she'd need this stuff, or if Quatre had just gone out and gotten lost. But she had to find out.  
She walked quietly down the stairs and out of the back door, then over the wall into an alley. She'd check the corrupt places first- the places where the 'bad crowd' hung out, people who would kidnap people for ransom. She smiled, and it was a smile like that of a predator.  
^^^  
Creeping in through the open door, Adia sniffed quietly. This was it- the 'lair' of one of the worst gangs of thugs in town. They did nothing as serious as kidnap themselves, but they often sheltered murderers and other vermin in the dank rooms of their hideout, for the image it gave them.   
Softly, she crept from door to door, listening for movement. Finally, she found a door with a familiar voice sounding behind it. She smiled, and left her bag by the door as she threw it back against its hinges.  
^^^  
"Excuse me, but do you know the way to hell?"  
Quatre looked away from his tormentor and gasped as he recognised the girl outlined in the doorway. What was Adia doing here, and in a floral-printed dress?   
"Who are you?" his captor sneered, pulling a gun from his pocket.  
"I'm just a poor little blind girl who has lost her way," Adia replied in a voice that made Quatre's spine shiver. Where did she learn to talk like *that*? God, he expected to hear that kind of voice from a bimbo, or a movie, but not from Adia!  
"Oh yeah?"  
"Yep. And look what I found!" she cooed, pulling her hand from behind her back. "Isn't it pretty?"  
Quatre gulped at the sight of the gun. "Adia, get out of here!" he yelled, and watched as her blind eyes darted towards where he sat.   
Good. She knew where Quatre was, now, and thanks to the voice of the other guy, she knew where he was, too.  
"I wonder what it does?" she managed, trying to keep her face smooth, rather than humiliated from sounding like such a…such a…oh, she didn't have a word for it. She pulled the trigger, carefully keeping it just to the right of the villain's voice. A loud bang, and a yell.  
Quatre looked up, to see the man holding the ragged remains of his ear. It bled sluggishly, but he could see from the small smile on Adia's face that it was no accident. She'd actually known where to shoot. But how?  
"Oh dear, did I hurt you?" she asked, sounding mock-concerned in that breathy, ever-so-attractive tone.  
"Damn you, you f***ing b*tch!" he yelled, fumbling for the trigger.  
"Thanks. You just made my job a whole lot easier," she said calmly. "I'm just a poor little blind girl…WITH DAMN SHARP HEARING!" she yelled, eyelids flaring, and pulled the trigger. The slug hit Quatre's tormentor between the eyes, and he slumped to the floor, the gun dropping from limp fingers. Quatre's eyes were open wide; that had been too close for comfort. Adia shoved the gun into the waistband of her dress, and dragged a large rucksack into the room, closing the door behind her and flicking on the light.   
Quatre squinted in the sudden brightness, but watched as she came up next to him, with a knife ready for cutting the ropes.  
She could feel his breath warm on her shoulder as she sawed through the ropes around his torso; goosebumps appeared on her skin, and she shivered for no reason at all.   
"Where did you learn that?" Quatre asked, rubbing his wrists as she dealt with his ankles.   
"My father's a Preventor," she told him, face concentrated as the bonds came loose and she stood. "He taught me that, mostly in self-defence."  
"Well, I'm glad he did," he told her warmly, and hugged her.   
"So am I," she whispered, and buried her face in his shoulder. "Jamy called me and said you hadn't come home. What did they want?"  
"Money," he told her, trying to ignore how close she was, and the perfect way her head fitted in the curve of his shoulder. "They were going to ransom me. How did you know where to find me?"  
"Well, where's the only place you can buy the kind of green tea you like?" she asked, laughing, as she pulled away, cheeks lightly flushed. "Where else would you go shopping?"  
He laughed too, but stopped abruptly when she handed him a gun from her bag. "Do I need this? You know all weapons are supposed to have been destroyed-"  
"So?" she asked, hands on hips and head tilted, a serious expression on her face. "Everybody knows they weren't all destroyed, and you can't fight guns with flower petals."  
She was right, and he knew it. "Let's just…get out of here, alright?" he asked, and she nodded, leading back into the sunshine.  
  



	4. A beautiful light

Adia awoke, eyes closed under the soft blindfold they'd shown her before the anaesthetic. The last she remembered was trying to count down from ten to one…and then it all faded as she went calmly to sleep, and was taken to the operating theatre. Her mind skipped back to the phone conversation she'd had the previous week.  
---Flashback---  
"Adia? This is Doctor Aimes. We have a proposition for you."  
"Who's we?"  
"The hospital has been testing a new procedure, which you're a perfect candidate for."  
"You mean…" Adia's breath came short, and she had to thump her ribcage to get breathing again.  
"Yes. They might be able to cure your vision. Now, the procedure is still experimental-"  
"Can they make me blinder?" she asked sarcastically. "How much?"  
"As it's still in trial, it's free. It's worked on ten other patients, so-"  
"I'm in, alright? How soon can they do it?" Impatiently, she waited for his answer.  
"Well, they can probably fit you in next week."  
"Next week?" she had asked incredulously, but her heart was jumping in her mouth. To be able to see again…  
"Yes."  
"Fine. Just tell my dad the details. I'm going out. Bye!" She ran out to tell Quatre.  
---End of flashback---  
Trembling, she slowly lifted the blindfold. She hardly dared to hope…. and flinched at the light flooding into her long-disused retinas. But…light! So long without it, and the sudden euphoria hit her like a tsunami. There was something resting on her legs.  
The first thing her eyes landed on was the source of the weight. Quatre was asleep, arms folded and head resting on them, blonde locks hanging randomly across his forehead. He seemed to glow in the sudden brightness, her golden haired friend.  
Adia couldn't help it; she laughed, and Quatre awoke to the sound of joy spilling from her, rubbing his eyes with his hand, taking the sleep from his lashes.  
"Quat, I can see!" she laughed, turning her head swiftly to look all around the small room. Everything was beautiful, everything was bursting with colour, from her bag to the faded wallpaper. "I can see!"  
He laughed, and then he noticed her eyes. Discoloured for so long, they were now a deep mahogany brown, and tears of happiness sparkled in them. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, then before hers had been misty and lost; now it was joyful and exhilarated, and her laughter made her face beautiful.   
Adia's laughter slowed and stopped, and her hand reached out and touched his cheek, as if to assure herself that he wasn't an illusion, like those pictures in her dreams. "It is you," she whispered, then screamed with laughter once more, jumping from the bed and looking out of the window.   
"It's snow," she breathed, fogging the pane slightly with her breath, then rubbed her arms rapidly, even though the room was warm. She had on one of those thin night-gowns the hospitals give out, and scrambled back under the covers, shivering, partly with excitement.  
"I can see," she whispered once more, then burst out crying with shock.   
^^^  
"What will you do now?" Quatre asked as they left the ward, holding her bag. Adia had finally been allowed to leave, after much fretting on her part, once the people at the hospital were sure she was fine.   
"Well, first things first, I'm dumping this lot at home." She took the bag from his strong fingers.   
"Then, I'm going to see a movie," she grinned, walking backwards along the street, looking back at him. "Want to come?"  
"Alright," he replied, smiling at her simple wish. "What do you want to see?"  
"I don't know," Adia replied, stopping still in the middle of the street, a pondering look on her face. "I don't know anything about what's on at the moment." It hadn't ever bothered her before, being unable to watch what happened. "You choose."  
"Fine," he told her, grabbing her arm and turning her around to walk next to him. "But that means you can't complain."  
^^^  
"That was cool," Adia remarked, as they left the cinema. The movie had been a comedy/ romance. They had laughed together, flicking popcorn at each other. "So many things to see, so little time…"   
Quatre looked at her and watched as her large brown eyes took in everything around them, drinking the surroundings like water to a camel. "I think you'll be better at surveillance than Heero," he commented, continuing along the street, arm in arm with Adia. "You look like you see everything, at least, at the moment."  
"Oh, Heero's boring," she replied absently, and ignored his shocked gasp.  
"You know Heero?"  
"Duh," she told him, frowning. "Like I said, my dad's a Preventor."  
"But-"  
"Don't stammer, it makes you sound stupid," she remarked, smiling widely at his confusion. "He visits my dad sometimes. 'Course, I've only ever heard his voice."  
"Well, thanks for telling me," Quatre said reproachfully, and stopped when she stared at him.   
"Quatre, you actually sound resentful!" she commented wryly. "That's probably the Quatre equivalent of swearing!"  
He blushed, and she grinned, pinching his cheek. "That's more like the ikkle Ketwa I know," she teased, giggling as he rubbed fiercely at his now burning face.  
"You're shorter than I am!" he retorted, and she looked up at his face.  
"You're right, I am," she said, puzzled. "When did I get this short? I never noticed-"   
He turned quickly and tweaked her nose, then ran off as fast as he could when she squawked with surprise and indignation, then raced after him, their laughter rising into the heavens.  
^^^  
They slammed through the door, Adia laughing breathlessly as Quatre tickled her, trying to choke out her surrender but laughing instead and falling onto the floor of her room.   
"Stop it, I give up, I give up-" she managed, gasping for air. Quatre stopped, and she realised he was pinning her to the floor. Unable to help herself, she reached up and stroked his cheek.  
"It is symmetrical, you know," she told him, smiling slightly. It had been one of the first things she'd said to him. ~ And oh, so soft. ~   
Quatre smiled back, trying not to lean into the touch. Her fingers were gentle across the sensitive flesh.  
Adia's hand traced his jaw line, fluffing the soft, fair down on his skin and watching the way it settled after her fingers had passed. It was too much for him.   
Quatre bent down and kissed her abruptly, and she gasped with surprise. Pulling back, she struggled to get enough air in her lungs to speak. "Quatre, I don't think-" but he kissed her again, and she couldn't resist any longer. She knew she wanted to, but…he was the heir to the Winner family, and she was the daughter of a coarse policeman. He should marry for his family, not just fall in love because he wanted to, provide for his sisters…  
"Quatre, I can't…" she stammered, pulling away and standing up. "You shouldn't, you know."  
He just looked at her, puzzled. He knew she loved him, but why was she so hesitant?  
"You shouldn't just do what you want, you have to think about your sisters."  
He laughed then, and grabbed her by the wrists. "Adia, I'm a billionaire." He kissed her. "I didn't ask to be, but I am." Kiss. "It's enough to look after generations of Winners." Kiss. "Isn't it reason enough that I love you?" He kissed her again. God, she was so beautiful to him. Even when she had been blind, those misty eyes hadn't changed anything. It was who she was that made her beautiful, not whether her eyes were brown or uselessly white.   
Adia kissed him back, then. She knew she loved him, and she still knew that her thoughts on his marrying for his family were still true. But she could ignore that, if just for a little while.  



	5. An Angel Falls

Adia looked up from her homework and sighed into space. No matter how old she got, she always had maths homework. It was all about pi, and attempting that only produced scribbled mistakes and a hollow, hungry feeling. It was something stupid about the area of circles or other…shapes… Idly, she let her pencil skid along the page, paying it no mind. She had sketched things for year blind, not letting it stop her love for drawing. And, looking back, some of them had even looked remotely like what they were supposed to. The trick was not to take the pencil off the page… She looked down and blanched. She'd been sketching Quatre, sleeping head on his arms. ~ Am I that far-gone? ~ Adia thought wryly, holding it up to the light. ~ Not bad, if I do say so myself. ~ A few shared kisses, but that was about it, and she was sketching him in her maths book, beside the scribbles of her homework. ~ Dear God, Adia, you're turning into one of those obsessives, like Princess Relena. ~ She'd always resisted the idea that she'd ever be like that. For one thing, how was she supposed to judge if a guy was presentable, if she couldn't see them?   
Reaching for an eraser, she paused, and sighed, amused despite herself. Instead, she tore the page out and put it in a steadily growing pile of drawings in her drawer. For a moment she entertained the possibility of burning the evidence, but couldn't quite bring herself to do it. ~ It's only because we don't have a fireplace, ~ she told herself, and turned back to her homework.  
^^^  
"Hey! Quatre! You coming or not?" Adia yelled up the stairs. She'd been let in by one of his sisters, one of the younger ones, having found out that he was still in bed. "Don't make me come up there!"  
A couple more minutes passed, and she grunted irritably, then proceeded to march up the stairs. She met Jamy at the top.   
"Into the lair of the beast?" Quatre's oldest sister asked, jokingly, and Adia grinned.  
"Don't tell me he sleeps naked, 'cos I'm going to drag him out if I have to." Jamy grinned back, and continued downstairs and out of the house, laughing to herself. She had a feeling Quatre was going to get a rude awakening.  
"Hey! Get up, camel-breath!" she shouted outside the door. "Unless you reply, I'm coming in!"  
She counted to twenty, then opened the door a crack and slipped in through the gap silently, padding over to the bed. She meant to wake him by calling into his ear, but a shaft of sunlight was shining through the gap in the curtains, shimmering in the tousled golden hair on the pillow. It made her stop and gaze a minute, just looking at the play of the golden rays on his face. After so long without any light at all, it seemed odd to find one sight the most compelling. A faint smile touched her face, and she sat on a chair across from the bed to wait. Let him sleep beautifully for a little longer, long lashes tickling fair cheeks. The light seemed to come from his sleeping face, from the shining locks, rather than the sun outside. ~ An angel, ~ Adia thought. ~ Except I don't believe in God. ~  
The eyelids fluttered, maybe he had sensed her presence, and the dazzling blue of his eyes opened to take her in. Quatre sat up and smiled sleepily.  
"What are you doing in my room while I'm in bed?" he asked through a yawn, still half-asleep.  
"Well, at the moment, I'm looking at you sitting there half-dressed," Adia replied, grinning. "I'd leer, except it isn't ladylike." Quatre blushed and pulled the covers up.   
"I don't mind," she told him, smiling softly. "You looked so peaceful, I didn't want to wake you, so I waited till you woke yourself." She would have waited forever, if she could just look at him, but she wasn't going to say that to his face.  
She sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at him happily. He was still taller than her, even with her sitting up straight.   
~ When did I get short? ~ Adia wondered, then dismissed it when he smiled. Well- not so much dismissed it as forgot it. She could feel herself melting like wax crayons in the sun, and felt unable to resist turning into a messy rainbow of bright colours.  
Quatre could see her smile, but- something else happened as well. Something in her eyes softened when she looked at him, and for a moment he could almost believe that what he was seeing was the girl she would have been if the blindness had never come. He reached out, and she let him hold her, head pressed to his chest and listening to his steady heartbeat. ~ Where's Adia gone, and who's this who's replaced her? ~ He wondered, lips lightly pressed to her hair. This Adia was warm and smiling, with none of the bitterness and resentment that was part of the other girl.   
"Just kiss me, Quatre," she murmured to him, then smiled at the look of surprise on his face, and the quickening of his pulse. "You know you will anyway."  
Just now she felt secure, loved, as he kissed her free of the venom that had become so much of who she was. It was Quatre; he was pure in his heart, she knew that, deep down. But her? In her heart she would always be crippled, stained, less than whole. The blindness had been a vicious acid that ate away at the innocence of her existence. She didn't deserve him. His hope of salvation would be better off without her; no matter what, she had to make sure he was all right. She couldn't waste his existence with her…her scarred soul. Adia pulled away, a frightened look on her face. Quatre blinked, and tried to hold her, but she pulled away, backing off towards the door.  
"Adia? What's wrong?" He was really concerned now- the fear and self-loathing on her face was plain to him, and he stood, walking towards her.  
"Don't! Quatre, just…just don't. I'm…I'm not who I should be. Here," she pressed her hands to her chest, "If it wasn't for the blindness, maybe…but I'm too…dirty is how I feel. I've got too much hate in me to be any good for anybody, least of all you. Your innocence…I won't spoil that. I can't."  
Quatre stared at her, eyes wide then walked forward and kissed her forcefully before she could stop him. "Do you think the blindness ever bothered me?" he hissed furiously, His hands gripping her shoulders. She could feel him trembling with tension. His voice rose as she stared. "Do you think I'm innocent? I killed hundreds, thousands of people, Adia. I'm stained with the blood of too many people. And you think I'm innocent? Ha!" he laughed bitterly at the irony. "I went on a violent rampage, crazed with guilt, and I destroyed so many innocent lives…so many truly innocent lives." He sat down on the floor suddenly, as if the tension holding him up had snapped. He studied the pattern on the floor. "I stopped being innocent the day I first realised what the gundam was, what it was to become. So don't tell me about being dirty." He stared at his hands, and they were shaking. He breathed out a shuddering sigh, trying to get a hold on himself. But so many lives, and it was his fault…his hands…he wrung them together, trying to squeeze out the evil that he could feel, just under the skin, burning him…  
Adia's staring face shifted, and the sympathy there matched that he had felt when she had been sightless. "I didn't know," she whispered. "I never thought… dear God, Quat, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…" She hugged him as he shook in self-hatred, there on the carpeted floor. The sunlight missed him now, and it looked as though the angel had fallen. She held him and burned out the bitterness she felt. His trembling form relaxed. It was time to let the hatred go.  



	6. The Perfect Gift

"I don't disgust you?" Quatre whispered after a while. "You're not scared?"  
Adia smiled faintly, and her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. "Quatre, if I lost my sight again right now, the only thing I would regret would be me being unable to see you again. You're so beautiful to me," she whispered, cupping his face in her hands and pressing her forehead to his. "But the person I fell in love with wasn't the person I could see; I fell in love with the person I could hear. Even if you were deformed, I would still love you." The tears began to run down her cheeks, but her eyes twinkled. "You once asked you if loving me wasn't enough. Isn't me loving me you enough reason?"   
Quatre was crying too, and she realised how upset he was about all that he had done. She smiled again when she thought of him, lying asleep. She moved him until his head rested in her lap, and she smoothed his forehead, stroking his untidy hair till he fell to sleep again, dozing lightly. Her hand kept moving, and she smiled as a snatch of song came into her head.  
"I think I loved you before I met you, I think I dreamed you into life…"  
She sung gently, and watched him sleep, not noticing as the door opened quietly and one of Quatre's sisters looked in.  
Quickly, she pulled away from the door, shutting it again. It had been such a pretty picture, and she hadn't wanted to spoil it.  
^^^  
Finally, Christmas rolled around, and Christmas Eve found Adia and Quatre sitting in the near dark, with only the fairy lights on the tree to shine gently, twinkling their message of warmth. It was so nice just to sit, looking out at the abundant snow. It was shining and glinting in the gathering darkness, the packed crystals reflecting the last of the day's light, pockets of shadow highlighting their footprints. They were wrapped in a huge blanket together, their clothes creased as they sat, but neither of them noticed or cared.   
"Adia?"  
She turned to look at him, smiling as she did. His sandy hair was ruffled, and his cheeks were still rosy from the cold outside. "Yeah?"  
"I know it's not Christmas, but I wanted to give you your present now."  
"That's alright," she told him, hugging Quatre around the neck. "Nothing you do could upset me today."  
"Well, it's only small, but-" he pulled a small wrapped box from his pocket. "All I want for Christmas is you." He smiled shyly.  
She gasped as the box opened to show a silvery ring, the polished surfaces of the small white diamond sparkling warmly in the soft glow from the tree. "Quat, it's beautiful! But, wait a minute," she grinned now, and kissed him quickly. "Does that mean I can keep the present I got you?"  
Quatre looked at her, asking the unsaid question with his eyes. The grin changed into a wide beam, her face lighting up and eyes glowing with happiness. "Of course I will!" she cried, and kissed him again, snuggling close and sighing as he gently slipped the white gold token onto her slender finger. "Christmas is so beautiful with you," she whispered, admiring the sparkling engagement ring. She looked up as he smiled happily, then he held her close against his chest and they watched the artificial snow fall gently in the darkness beyond the frosted window pane.  
  
  
"I think I loved you before I met you  
I think I dreamed you into life  
I formed your voice from angel song,  
In the heaven of my mind.  
Your face was forged in paradise,   
by able hands of light,   
and the warmth that glows within you   
fills my world tonight."  
  
  
  
  



End file.
